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Biography
Jason Alan Kilar (born April 26, 1971) is an American businessperson and a member of the board of directors for DreamWorks Animation. He became the CEO of WarnerMedia on May 1, 2020. He was previously an Amazon executive and the CEO of Hulu, a joint venture OTT media service of The Walt Disney Company (67%) and NBCUniversal (33%).
Early life and career
Jason Alan Kilar was born in Pittsburgh. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993 and continued his education at Harvard Business School, earning an MBA.
On January 4, 2013, he announced his resignation from Hulu after five years, together with Hulu CTO Rich Tom. The next month, Kilar joined the board of directors for DreamWorks Animation.
In 2014, he announced Vessel, a subscription video service, where he was CEO and backed by investment companies Benchmark, Greylock Partners, and Bezos Expedition until the site was eventually sold to Verizon Communications in 2016.
On April 1, 2020, WarnerMedia then CEO John Stankey announced that Kilar would be assuming the role effective May 1, 2020. Stankey announced that Kilar would be reporting to Stankey, who will remain COO of AT&T. On April 24, 2020, it was announced that Stankey will become the CEO of AT&T on July 1, 2020.
Education
In 1989, Jason Kilar attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He graduated in 1993 Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in journalism and business administration. Mike Lehr, his former roommate was quoted saying that Kilar was "the triple threat", "smart, creative, and energetic".
Kilar also attended Harvard Business School, entering in the fall of 1995. Kilar's class was unique in that his class was the first HBS class to be given an email address -- an AOL one. In his second year at Harvard Business School, Kilar took a class called "Managing in the Marketplace", taught by Jeffrey Rayport. In a class convened at Aldrich Hall, Kilar met Jeff Bezos, and interviewed with Bezos a week after. Kilar has called Bezos the "single greatest business leader of the last hundred years.